Australian filmmakers are stars of science film awards

Kristian is one of several Australian filmmakers whose films garnered awards from the international science film festival, which screens across Australia and New Zealand during National Science Week (August 15 – 23).

The winners were announced at the launch of National Science Week at Questacon in Canberra this morning.

The young student from Debney Park Secondary College in suburban Melbourne won the prize for his documentary short Woomera Test Facility.

“Kristian’s film was outstanding in terms of his sharp and informative script and wonderful mix of archival and contemporary footage,” judge and Festival Director Cris Kennedy said.

While still in primary school, Kristian’s stop-motion film entitled Photosynthesis won best student film at SCINEMA in 2008, and drew the attention of ABC’s Catalyst program, which ran a story on the budding filmmaker in March 2009.

For his efforts this year, Kristian wins an internship at The Dish in Parkes courtesy of Festival sponsor CSIRO.

Among the other winners was Canberra’s Bobby Cerini whose film Robot World was voted Best Experimental Film, and Sydney filmmaker Martyn Park whose film 1 and 0nly, an environmental take on the Heart of Darkness tale, took the gong for Best Narrative Film. 

The full list of 2009 Scinema Festival of Science Film winners are:

• Best Film – Between the Folds (USA) by Vanessa Gould Producer & Director for Green Fuse Films “…for so elegantly and succinctly capturing the science of art and the art of science”
• Best Director – Kris Kroening for 400 Years of the Telescope (USA)
• Best Student Film – Kristian Lang for Woomera Test Facility (Australia)

Commendations:

Geoff Abeshouse for Universal Surprise  (Australia)
Enya Daly and Katya Simao for The Little Street Called the Milky Way (Australia)
An Honourable Mention for Alexander Simpson for Black Holes (Australia)

• Best Television Series – Pierre Bressiant for The Antibiotic Adventure (France)
• Best Narrative Film – Martyn Park for 1 and 0nly (Australia)
• Best Animation/Experimental Film – Bobby Cerini for Robot World (Australia)
• Best Short Film – Sasha Andrews and Jeanne Guiraud for Sound Waves (UK)
• Award for Scientific Merit – Deborah Kingsland (Producer) and Documentary
  Filmmakers Group (UK) and The Wellcome Trust for the short film series Science on Film (UK)

The SCINEMA Festival Jury also granted a special award to the Central Australian
Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) in recognition of their ongoing contribution to science film in Australia.

SCINEMA (pronounced with a long ‘i’ to emphasis the science behind the cinema) screens at over 200 venues across Australia and New Zealand from this week.

SCINEMA is a partnership between CSIRO and Cosmos Magazine, and is funded by the Federal Government through its National Science Week program.